Assistant boss Knill pleased with Cobblers’ pre-season progress

James Heneghan

Cobblers assistant manager Alan Knill says he is pleased with the progress the players have made in pre-season following their goalless draw with Burgess Hill Town.

Northampton dominated much of the encounter but failed to find the elusive goal as the Isthmian League side thwarted numerous openings with Marc Richards, Sam Hoskins and John-Joe O’Toole all going close.

Knill was satisfied with the performance and was quick to praise his side’s attitude afterwards, saying: “I’m going to say it was a looked like a typical, end-of-week pre-season game. I thought it was a good challenge for us.

“Obviously the pitch was difficult and that made it tough for us to get it down and pass it around but the most important thing was that we didn’t lose.

“We all know we can be better than that but where we are at the moment is where we want to be.

“Keeping a clean sheet always pleases me and the general attitude of the players was excellent. The pitch was difficult but it is what it is in pre-season.

“We said before the game that it’s just a typical pre-season pitch but you have to have the right attitude and I thought our players showed that today.

“It’s always frustrating because you want to win. Sometimes you can’t do that but we had enough chances to score so I don’t think we’ll have a sleepless night over it tonight.”

Saturday’s goalless draw was Town’s third pre-season game - following wins over Sileby Rangers and Worthing - but their preparations for the new season now step up a notch with Sky Bet Championship sides Birmingham City and Derby County coming to Sixfields over the next 10 days.

Knill added: “There’s lots that we still need to work on but the most important thing is that it was another 60 or 70 minutes for some and it’s at the end of a tough week so we expected everyone to be tired.

“Now we’ve got a tougher week ahead as we have Derby and then Birmingham, so it’s a step up in opposition but I have to say that it’s been a really good week for us.”

Knill also confirmed that Ricky Holmes missed the game due to a minor injury, adding: “Ricky’s here with us today. He’s just got a slight strain so it was a precaution to leave him out.”